Posted
by
timothyon Saturday June 02, 2012 @10:21PM
from the would-you-like-some-goose-with-your-gander? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Further to the previous story on Slashdot where attorney Candice Schwager threw threats to sue a photographer who reported a DMCA violation against her for infringing use of his photography: Candice has now made a DMCA threat of her own against Petapixel, a photography site that reported on her infringement. The kicker? She's sent the DMCA notice an apparent six times not to Petapixel's registrar or their hosting service, but to Godaddy, her own registrar."

And I could say you guys gave us GWB, but then "someone" voted for him... twice.

GWB was actually from Connecticut. He bought the Texas property purely as a political prop, and sold it the second he was out of office. The entire thing was social engineering, designed to make rural and lower class people empathize with him, instead of realizing he's just an embarrassing brat from a New England, old money family.

I should have included this in my original post, but for anyone too lazy to follow the link, 17 USC 107 [cornell.edu] states (in part):

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright....

In short, it appears to be an explicit and clear cut example of fair use.

sorry for posting this earlier, but I figured its relevant, btw I'm not an american, I'm a Canadian, but I just hate it when a good state looks stupid because of one person, especially texas because southern texas women are HOT.

To file a complaint you must:

Contact a CDC Regional Office

If you have questions about the grievance process or the status of a grievance, or if you need to request a grievance form, please call the office located nearest you.

"Isn't it ironic? Atty4kids' suffering began when a crafty Houston Chronicle Help Desk Guy, Jay Lee asserted what appeared to be false claims for copyright violation against her, wiping out this and 13 websites 8 days before the primary, under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Why do I believe it was false? A litany of facts suggesting Jay has very naughty. "Fair Use" Doctrine. Jay Lee and his outrageous lynch mob media printing lies to smear Candice have gone so over the top, there's simply more to the story. I've never met anyone so masochistic, begging to be smacked, as Jay. Call in the lynch mob! It goes all the way to Scotland! what's really up? Why would grown men put on an act like this,assassinating the Character of the President & Founder of Attorneys for Special Needs Children? Jay Lee is a hacker and tech expert and knows everything imaginable about computers. He would certainly know how to take down 14 of Atty4kids' websites with a single accusation. He would also know that images can be purchased through licensing, if he did not truly own the image motivating him to slice her jugular. What was wrong with sites? Sheriff Garcia was called a cry baby and couldn't take it. Artsy people like Lee usually possess many talents. He is an Amatuer photographer. He had a right to file te claim if true, but Most people are kind enough to first notify the person going for the jugular. He did not. He whines that he didn't know this would occur, unlikely story. What I think he failed to anticipate was the devastation and anger he'd cause to a mom with three kids who is deeply committed to advancing the Civil Rights of Special Needs Children (Atty4kids) who is a force to be reckoned with. Realizing the damage caused, he withdrew his sworn infringement claim immediately and practically begged her ISP to restore service quickly. Whether her suspicions are right or not, HE SHOULD HAVE HIT THE ROAD After she apologized, offered payment, permitting him to NAME HIS PRICE, he withdrew the accusation and the image was removed. He did not, but began stalking Atty4kids on Twitter and accused her of infringement AGAIN in fron of 1700 followers. Livid, she said "you better be joking" and he disappeared in abject fear. Coupled with the bait and switch game he played on Flickr, theres reason for concen. First, he scripted a drama for others to play that was enough to make you vomit. He wrote his pathetic sob story all over the photo with a frowny face as onlookers gawked ooh, aah, and spoke of the money he should have been paid on Flickr, UNAWARE that he could have NAMED THE PRICE and FAILED. 10 seconds was my limit. I left ad clicked the link a short time afterwards of curiosity, POOF! GONE! A magician like Sheriff Garcia? With the Chronicle Head Sheriff Garcia's crafty weasly Campaign Manager, free lessons? What are the odds that less than 24 hours after calling Garcia a cry baby and 8 days prior to primary, her VERY POLITICAL, HIGH RANKED blog, Chicks and Politics, would be suspended by a hacking pro employed with the Chronicle! If you knew Bernie's influence with the Chronicle, you'd laugh. She traced the Twitter stalker immediately, finding Jay and his Chronicle association she knew before even looking. Media Libels Atty4kids & Violates Her COPYRIGHT (DMCA) Jay milked the horrific tragedy for 4 days at which time Atty had enough and demanded he remove all of his libel, infringement and harassment from the web within 2 hours. Several cease and desist letters were sent, but this one hit a nerve. Maybe it was Atty's advice, "Get a lawyer," for 4 days, every parasite imaginable seeking to cash in (they are collecting funds for Jay's Defense), not yet realizing they'll need one too, is defaming her too. Theyve republished a BS atiry to inflict damage. Keep it up, morons! Damages are looking great! Atty has given 1000 hours in our fight foe justice for disabled kids. She

Make no mistake -- Texas is indeed full of dumbasses. It's not a unique condition. I have lived here ALL my life and the one thing I have come to understand about dumbasses, is not all of them are malicious assholes. We didn't all vote for Bush (or Perry for that matter) but WAY too many of us did.

Although her Linkedin profile states that she has worked as an attorney in the past, the Texas bar website does not show her as a current member. She claims to have made a voluntary career change and left the practice of law to become an attorney marketing guru. That's somewhat plausible, except that NO attorney who has been admitted to the bar would allow their admission to lapse voluntarily except in VERY unusual circumstances. Even those who leave the practice of law almost always maintain their bar memberships. I would bet she was disbarred or suspended for an extended time.

She doesn't have a fair use claim, but petapixel has a very clear fair use claim for the thumbnail screen shots of the original photo, and her infringing usage of it. That appears to be the photo she's claiming a DMCA violation on, and she has no valid claim because of 17 USC 107. Also, the fact that she doesn't own the copyright to the image in question means she may have committed perjury when she filed the DMCA takedown notice.

I'm only a layman, and my conclusions are not legal advice. But I have read the copyright law many times, and that's how interpret it. YMMV.

Couldn't this qualify as libel? And isn't she perjuring herself by claiming that this individual is violating her copyrights even though it's a clear cut case of fair use? Not to mention the crazy claims she made about the other individual.

This series of events have been so awkward and strange that I'm seriously starting to wonder if everyone is in it together to troll the internet. How is this crazy lunatic woman a lawyer, really, without even seemingly a basic understanding of the law?

Teabaggers had nothing to do with the current economic crisis; they were a response to the crisis, not its cause. It was caused by decades of progressive erosion of banking regulations, and the culprits were a series of Republicans; mainly Senators and regulatory agency appointees put in by Republican presidents, from Reagan onwards. Of course, there were exacerbating additional insults, like the Dubya tax cuts, but the root cause was the evisceration of the regulations put into place to prevent just this sort of thing from happening.

And it's fair to say that Obama broke a lot of promises; he did. He has failed on so many levels; continuing and extending the unpopular TARP program, failing to take advantage of the brief period of Democratic control of Congress by getting his health care plan passed (and instead trying to play fair with the GOP, a party which makes no bones about its policy of doing everything it can to harm the country when the other party holds the White House in order to make the President look bad), and by knuckling under to the Republicans at every turn, getting a watered-down health care bill passed that ends up accomplishing nothing. It's not his fault; he's naive and inexperienced, and never should have been put up as a nominee -- but the brain trust at the national democratic party decided that anyone who could give one good speech was the democratic version of Reagan, so he was rushed in.

Yes you are right, the story doesn't make sense. And the summary doesn't help. The story:
Jay Lee, a photographer, took a picture. Discovered many people were using it. Issued DMCA notices
Candice, was using the picture to promote a business. Go Daddy received DMCA and took down all 14 of Candice's sites. She freaked.

That was basically the original story.
PetaPixel reported on the issue, included a screenshot of Candice's use of Jay's photo.
Remember I said Candice flipped? So apparently she issued SIX DMCAs to GoDaddy because she claims PetaPixel's screenshot of her site is copyright infringement (when in reality it is fair use)

Following one anonymous coward's idea that she might be registered under her maiden name, another anonymous coward found her registration as Candice Leonard and a record of her marriage to Richard Schwager in 1999. I just though I would bring this to the attention of people who do not read anonymous cowards, so that you know who to complain about to the Texas State Bar:

She has not been disbarred or suspended, though her recent actions seem to warrant it...

Though it's not relevant in this case, you're absolutely right about attorneys not letting their bar membership lapse. My dad maintained his bar membership for more than 30 years after he stopped practicing, even though he hated being a lawyer and never had any intention of going back into practice.

You wouldn't think that strange if you knew anything about Ann Richard's opponent, Clayton Williams. He was his own worst enemy. Blew a huge, huge lead. Pretty well sealed his loss when he compared bad weather to rape, saying "if it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it".